It was therefore a bit of a shock when Dear Old Dependable James broke the silence by saying sourly, That old boyfriend of yours whats his name? Rocca? He laughed but it came out as more of a disgusted snort. I suppose they all change their names, but Rocca.
Rocco, James. And its his real name.
Of course youd know that, wouldnt you, having been the Great Stars girlfriend? Funny you never mentioned it before, isnt it? If your grandmother hadnt let the cat out of the bag Id still be in the dark.
So would the cat, said my unfortunate mouth, which doesnt always refer to my brain before uttering.
Jamess expression became even more sombre, so I hastened on soothingly, And really, James, there was no cat to let out of the bag, if by that you meant a guilty secret. If Id thought a detailed list of all my old boyfriends would amuse you Id have given you one.
You didnt have any other boyfriends. Valerie told me.
I felt distinctly ruffled both by the idea of him and Mother discussing my suitability (I mean, she probably assured him Id only been round the block once, low mileage, practically a born-again virgin), and the fact that it should matter who else Id been out with (or in with) if he loved me. I bet she also tried to smooth over my unattractive points: i.e. my height (I always wear flat shoes), the cleft chin (Mother calls it a dimple) and the strange colour of my hair (strawberry blond).
I wouldnt have thought you were Fergal Roccos type anyway, since hes so extrovert and wild, and youre as prissy as Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood rolled into one, he added unforgivably.
Prissy? I am not prissy! I exclaimed, hurt and angry. Anyway, when you proposed you said it was my being so reserved and home-loving that attracted you in the first place!
And then, with a sudden flash of belated illumination, it occurred to me that prissy was just the sort of wife hed been looking for and thought hed found, since Id been quietly working hard at my course and my writing and at that time wore sombre clothes, too. I probably seemed exactly the sort of girl his uncle Lionel had told him he ought to marry, since neither of them has the ability to tell good girls from bad girls (possibly because the distinction no longer exists).
A nice, quiet, malleable young girl only he didnt realise Id been hardened into quietness by fire.
James was scowling blackly ahead over the steering wheel. Suddenly discovering that your quiet, librarian wife is the ex-girlfriend of a notorious rock star is a bit unsettling, and I can assure you that Lionel and Honoria wouldnt have welcomed you into the family as warmly as they did if theyd known.
If that was warm I wouldnt like to see them meeting someone they disapproved of.
You may yet do so if they find out about this.
I dont see why they should. Or why their approval should be necessary.
Of course it is! A solicitor needs the right kind of wife. They did comment at the time that you had appalling taste in clothes, but it would probably improve with a
little guidance.
How nice of them! I said drily.
Honoria always wears things made out of hairy tweed like sacking, and high-necked shirts.
I remembered the first time Lionel and Honoria had met Granny, Mother having managed to keep her hidden until then.
But James must have told them about her, for we had all been bidden to dine at the pretentious and stuffy restaurant they favoured for such jollifications as interrogating future in-laws.
They had seemed mesmerised both by the size and profusion of Grannys diamonds, a selection of which had as usual been pinned and hung at random over her billowing bosom. As she often says: if youve got em, flaunt em.
This might have had some bearing on the marked effort to be polite to her they made even after she called the waiter over and demanded, pointing at her soup,What do you call this?
Chicken soup, madam, hed replied haughtily.
If thats chicken, it walked through on stilts.
How very droll your dear grandmother is, Honoria had remarked in an aside to me. A true original. You are her only grandchild, arent you?
What? Oh yes, Dad was her only child. Id replied vaguely, wondering why I found Mother embarrassing whereas I never found Granny so.
Granny is clever, sharp, kind and loving, and if she doesnt want to put on airs and graces I dont see why she should. She says herself that Yorkshire folk are as good as any and better than most.
I gave a snort as I recalled Jamess expression when Granny had written down a recipe for chicken soup and told the waiter to give it to the chef; then I realised he was still burbling on about my dress sense. Lack of, that is.
It wasnt doing much for his driving.
Not that your taste has improved, he was saying. All that black you used to wear was a bit gloomy, but youve gone too far the other way now.
Because Im happy, and I want to wear bright, cheerful colours while Im still young enough.
I suppose Fergal Rocco liked you in gaudy clothes?
He liked me best in no clothes at all.
I just managed to button my mouth before it got away from me, and after a brief struggle in which my lips writhed silently, managed to say with supreme self-control, Look, I only went out with him for a few months, then Goneril went to America and he dropped me like a hot potato. I never saw or heard from him again after he left. Satisfied?
Youve never seen him since?
No!
Only in my dreams. And let us hope James doesnt get a sudden urge to read one of my books (unlikely though it seems) wherein all the romantic heroes are remodelled and transmogrified versions of Fergal.
Tish the literary vampire.
Frankenstein Tish, creating a new Fergal each time from the best bits of the old (and there were some choice bits), joined to new parts culled from my imagination. (Ive got a good one. Lurid, even.)
Wonder if Fergal gets pale and listless every time I write a new novel? I wouldnt like to think I was draining his batteries
Who am I kidding? Yes I would! It would serve him right for breaking my heart.
James pulled up outside the flat with an over-dramatic swerve and stalked silently off without opening my door, one of the little old-world courtesies that first endeared him to me.
I only hope hes not going to brood over this. I dont know why hes so upset about it, since he knew I hadnt lived in an ivory tower before he came along. (A concrete university accommodation tower, actually the urge to escape Mother overcame me.)
Perhaps its just that the type of man I went out with doesnt match the image of me hes been cherishing.
Sometimes lately Ive thought the image he has of me doesnt match me very much either.
You know, even now Im not quite sure how I came to be married to James!
I wasnt actually looking for Mr Right. Not even for
Mr Will-Do-at-a-Push-if-Desperate.
I remember telling him quite plainly that my life was blighted and I intended living quietly in the country devoting myself to my writing, and him saying hed always wanted to live in the country too (his self-sufficiency phase). Then he just sort of sneaked up on me with flowers and chocolates and stuff. While spontaneity was not his middle name, dependability was: he was always there.
And being older he seemed rather suave and sophisticated. And attractive, even if not exciting, which was a plus point after Fergal: Id had excitement. In fact James had practically had Good Husband Material, Ready to Settle Down stamped on his forehead.
I dont know what was stamped on my forehead, but it must have been misleading.
He was, in many ways, terribly conventional, and I think, looking back, that he thought I was too. I was so quiet and stay-at-home (or stay-at-digs) after Fergal.
On this reflection the car door was suddenly wrenched open, and I would have fallen out if I hadnt still been wearing my seat belt.
Are you going to sit in the car all night daydreaming about your ex-boyfriend, or are you coming into the house? demanded James with icy sarcasm.
Oh dear.
Over his shoulder I observed something like a giant animated white hearth rug leap the area railing and bound off into outer darkness.
Bess is out, James, I said helpfully.
Fergal: November, 1998
ROCCO ROCKS ART WORLD.
Sun
Is this the face of New Renaissance Man?
Sunday Times
The painting is four foot square.
Step back, she swims out at you from the green depths.
Step forward, she vanishes.
The lady vanishes.
The gallery is crowded, thanks to the papers who have finally made the link between Fergal Rocco (infamous) singer/songwriter, and Rocco the painter.
At least most of the art critics have been kind. The gallerys been quietly selling my work since I left the Royal College of Art, so theres none of this pop singer thinks he can paint stuff. That would have really pissed me off.
There are two things Im serious about: my painting and my music.
There used to be three
Oh, Fergal, youre so clever, Nerissa sighs, lifting a face like a cream-skinned, innocent flower. All these hidden talents.
Shes small, pretty and curvaceous, and, judging from her short, select list of former conquests, finds fame in a man a powerful aphrodisiac. Nineteen going on immoral, and about as determined to get what she wants as Scarlett OHara. Sounds like her too, when shes trying to get round me, all that fake lil ol me stuff.
Daddys bought her everything shes ever wanted so far. Hed jib a bit at me, though, even if I were for sale, which Im not just available for a short loan.
Shes about the same age Tish was last time I saw her
Tish.
Swimming out of the green paint like a mermaid; walking hesitantly into the gallery as if summoned by my subconscious.
For a minute I really do think shes a figment of my imagination as she pauses in the doorway, gazing around. Her eyes seem dazzled by the lights, then they slide over the painting near me and meet mine, and its as if we are falling into each other all over again.
Someone coming in behind her touches her elbow to get past, breaking the contact, then she turns on her heel and is gone.
I only realise Ive taken a stride forward when Nerissas weight on my arm brings me up like a sheet anchor.
What is it? Where are you going?
I realise Ive been holding my breath as though Ive been swimming underwater for a long distance. Nowhere, I sigh. Im going nowhere.
Nerissas eyes flick from the painted girl behind me back to the empty doorway. Shes never going to be acclaimed as Intellectual of the Year, but she has her own sharp instinct to guide her.
That was the one the girl in the picture, wasnt it?
The girl in the picture doesnt exist.
The lady vanishes.
Again.
She was the one.
Chapter 3: Painted Out
Oh God! What on earth made me call in to see Fergals exhibition? And how could I have known he would be there, days after the show opened?
It was pure (or impure) curiosity but I certainly wouldnt have given in to it if it hadnt been for Jamess constant snide, jealous little remarks since he found out about Fergal. He even shoved the review of the exhibition under my nose, so it is all his fault.
My heart is still going like the clappers even now Im safely home, and theres a feeling like a hot nest of snakes in the pit of my stomach.
He saw me too. (Oh, damn and blast!) All those people, and the minute I walk through the door they part between us like the Red Sea before Moses. Like some invisible ley line
(Wow thats just given me a great idea for a novel title Ley Lines to Love!)
One glimpse of Fergal, and the pain and hurt feel as fresh as yesterday. But also something else, something Im ashamed of: lust, I think. All those hot snakes. Very biblical.
Its certainly something never stirred in me by James
When our eyes met it was just like the first time, when I fell on him from a great height except then he felt it too, I know he did.
This time he simply froze, expressionless, with that old painting he did of me right behind him so that I seemed to be swooping out towards myself over his shoulder.
Like coming face to face with your doppelganger (except that hes given me red hair, for some reason, though at least it means that no one will recognise me).
James goes to art galleries only if I force him to, and I certainly wont be doing that with this exhibition.
Poor old James, steady as a rock. I cant let this ridiculous stirring-up of past emotions affect my feelings for him.
I may be racked with anger, lust, whatever shaken but not stirred but it can all be safely bottled up and infused into my next book. Imprisoned by Love between hard covers.
Dear old James hes just as handsome in his own way, and if we have the sort of love that grows steadily rather than bursts instantly into flames and dies quickly, thats better, isnt it? And even if he isnt the worlds best lover (which is something I wouldnt have realised, I dont suppose, if I hadnt had the worlds best lover), that isnt his fault.
Is it?
Perhaps hes a bit stuck in his ways sometimes, and admittedly hes been behaving strangely since he found out about my sordid past, pointing out any mention of Fergal in the press or on TV.
Theres been quite a lot since the press suddenly discovered that hes been quietly exhibiting paintings and selling them for years. Youd think theyd have connected Rocco the painter with Rocco the singer by now, but apparently not, until he outed himself, as it were, with this one-man exhibition. I always thought hed abandoned his painting at the same time hed abandoned me.
I dont know why James has to make all these snide remarks about groupies and rock stars. Do I go on and on about his former girlfriend Vanessa, who went off and married someone else after helpfully presenting him with a replacement companion in the form of Bess the Stupid Bitch, and then turned up drunk at our wedding reception, where she peered critically at me through a positively funereal wreath of smoke and remarked blightingly, He was always looking for a virgin to sacrifice to his career. I suppose youre the next best thing.